El Pasoans on both sides of President Obama's gun-control proposals

El Pasoan Brock Reisdorf works to zero in the scope on his Black Rain .308 Wednesday in the shooting range at Sportsman's Elite in west El Paso. (Mark Lambie/El Paso Times)

The president's plan to control gun violence, which includes a ban on assault rifles, made El Paso gun owners and sellers anxious while pleasing local teacher unions.

President Barack Obama's $500 million gun violence plan that was unveiled Wednesday will bring a worthwhile hot-topic discussion to Congress, said El Paso's new Democratic Congressman Beto O'Rourke.

"It's a very important issue for the president, for Congress and for the people of El Paso to think about," O'Rourke said. "You have to think we can do better, and I was glad the president decided to address it."

At the Sportsman's Elite Hunting and Gun Pro Shop in El Paso, employees and customers watched the president's speech and immediately started to question what the future might hold for guns.

REPORTER

Aaron Bracamontes

Obama signed 23 executive orders to strengthen background check systems, to have the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research gun violence to and strengthen law enforcement.

The president then called on Congress to pass legislation that would require universal background checks and that would ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines.

"Congress should restore a ban on military-style assault weapons, and a 10-round limit for magazines," Obama said. "The type of assault rifle used in Aurora (Colorado), for example, when paired with high-capacity magazines, has one purpose -- to pump out as many bullets as possible, as quickly as possible; to do as much damage, using bullets often designed to inflict maximum damage."

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Shane Koch, Sportsman's manager, said most guns hold 10 or more bullets, so he doesn't know whether Obama's proposed laws would hurt his business.

"Someone needs to come in and tell me what high-capacity magazines mean," Koch said. "If we have to replace every clip on every pistol that we have, it won't make us happy."

Koch said enforcing background checks for all gun shoppers is a "good thing," but said a ban on assault rifles could change business.

"If they are banned we will stop selling them and if we have any, we will put them in a vault until the ban is lifted," Koch said. "We won't sell them until a Republican is elected and doesn't sign (the ban). That's what happened last time with (President George W.) Bush. I think that will eventually happen again."

Koch said gun stores survived the 1994 assault rifle ban during President Bill Clinton's administration, and they can survive a new version.

However, Sportsman's ran out of assault rifles the week after the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut and has not received a new shipment since.

But the shop has and will keep selling pistols and hunting rifles.

"El Paso has a good portion of its gun owners hunting dove, and that requires shotguns," Koch said. "Assault rifles are something people do for fun. They have no practical use, unless you are military."

"You have to take care of the Constitution and if you start to erode it, you slowly erode our rights," Reisdorf said. "The Second Amendment is not to go hunting or collect guns. When our Founding Fathers made it, the Second Amendment was the last true check and balance against a tyrannical government."

Reisdorf also questioned mental illness background checks, especially if a former soldier is diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. "So we are going to put the gun in their hands at war, but they come home and we are going to take that right away?" Reisdorf asked.

An assault rifle ban will hurt gun manufactures and their employees in a poor economical time and prevent law-abiding citizens from defending themselves, Reisdorf said.

"This seems more harsh than the 1994 ban," Reisdorf said. "It didn't work then. It didn't end violence."

But if the proposed laws would protect students and teachers in schools, then they would be a success, said Arlinda Valencia, president of the Ysleta Teachers Association.

"About 90 percent of our members are supportive of it," Valencia said. "We teach these students and they really become a part of us. To think any of them could get killed by a gun would hurt us."

The National Rifle Association proposed that teachers should be armed with guns in order to prevent school shootings. Valencia called that idea "ridiculous."

"If there is a gun at school, then there are bound to be more accidents," Valencia said. "Whenever you find out that a child brought a gun to school, it is absolutely terrifying. And let's say every teacher does have a gun, I don't know if I could shoot it."

The Ysleta Independent School District does have armed security guards or officers and so do other local school districts. Valencia said the Ysleta Teachers Association has no problem with more guards or officers on campus.

"That is who needs to have the guns -- trained and uniformed officers," Valencia said. "The way we feel about it here in El Paso is that we are OK with that."

In his speech, Obama said he believes most Americans support his proposals but still believes there is going to be a showdown between gun-ban supporters and opponents.

"And yet, that doesn't mean any of this is going to be easy to enact or implement," Obama said. "If it were, we'd already have universal background checks. The ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines never would have been allowed to expire."

O'Rourke, a freshman in the U.S. House of Representatives, said there has to be compromise by both sides.

"Those who don't want new laws don't care any less about protecting lives," he said. "And those who want more restrictions, they are not against the Second Amendment."

Since O'Rourke opened his Washington, D.C., and El Paso offices, his staff has heard the concerns on both sides through letters, phone calls and visits.

"The most important thing I can do is listen to people I represent in El Paso," O'Rourke said. "One thing I was very happy to hear the president bring up was gun trafficking. It is something we know all too much about in El Paso."

Along with gun trafficking, O'Rourke said, he was in favor of closing the "gun-show loophole," compiling more data for background checks and preventing those with mental illness or criminal backgrounds from buying guns.

"We have to make sure we strike the right balance between the right to have a gun and the right to be safe from gun violence," O'Rourke said. "I think everyone wants to get that balance. That's what I plan on doing."

Aaron Bracamontes may be reached at abracamontes@elpasotimes.com; 546-6156. Follow him on Twitter @AaronBrac